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LECTURE Xni. 



4>N PHYSIOGNOMY AND CRANIOGNOMY, OR THE EXPRESSION OF THE TEMPEB 



AND TALENTS. 



The ingenuity of man is never satisfied with research. In tracing out 

 the disposition of the mind by the variable features of the face, it has been 

 discovered that this last, though a general criterion, is not always an in- 

 fallible sign. It does not in every mstance, it is said, disclose even the 

 present and acting emotion ; for, in some persons, the symbols are natu- 

 rally slight and evanescent ; while m others, from a long and skilful course 

 of hypocrisy and dissimulation, they are repressed, or even fraudulently 

 exchanged for symbols, representative of affections which have no real 

 existence. But still less do they manifest the fixed and permanent pro- 

 pensity of the mind, which is ever pursuing its specific drift, whatever be 

 the transition of the passions or of the features from one character to an- 

 other. And it has hence been inquired whether there may not be some 

 soberer and less variable index by which the natural bent and tendency of 

 the mind may be detected ; a something that no art can imitate, no dis- 

 simulation conceal, enwoven in the toughest and hardest, as well as in the 

 softer and more flexible parts of the body — in the very tissue and figure 

 of the bones ; and consequently which 



Grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength. 



From such inquiries has arisen the study, for it can scarcely be called 

 the science, of physiognomy, — Temper indication^ or Temper- dialling, 

 —for such is the meaning of physiognomy, when strictly translated. It 

 is a figurative term, which supposes the body to be a dial-plate on which 

 the habitual turn or bearing of the mind is shadowed by means of the 

 index or gnomon of some fixed and prominent external distinction, which 

 retains its power and purpose amidst all the fleeting changes of the pas- 

 sions, and the mask of made-up smiles and serenity. 



This study is of early date, and in its descent to our own day, has met 

 with a perpetual alternation of evil report and good report, in proportion 

 as it has acquired the favouritism or encountered the rejection of public 

 opinion. Aristotle appears to have been the first philosopher who at- 

 tempted to reduce it to any thing like a scientific pursuit, and to fix it upon 

 any thing like permanent and undeniable principles. His definition of it 

 is excellent. " It is the science," says he, " by which the dispositions of 

 mankind are discoverable by the features of the body, and especially by 

 those of the countenance." And in the development of this pursuit, he 

 advanced it as a leading doctrine, that a peculiar form of body is invari- 

 ably accompanied by a peculiar disposition of mind ; that a human intel- 

 lect is never found in the corporeal form of a beast ; and that the mind 

 and body exercise a reciprocal influence over each other : referring us for 

 examples of the former to delirium and intoxication, in which the mental 

 fpllows upon the corporeal derangement ; and for examples of the latter. 



